


Monster in the Mirror

by RegalMisfortune



Series: The Tales of Others [2]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Child Neglect, Especially for Children, I write things instead of sleeping and it gets very wonky, In which I write about my other SDV OCS, Injury, Nightmares, Or Handles Them Appropriately, Percival Has a Lot of Issues and He Doesn't Really Get them Fixed, Please dont punch mirrors its bad for your health, Scars, Shadow Brutes - Freeform, The Mines are a Dangerous Place, Writing in Instrospect, it's not very happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegalMisfortune/pseuds/RegalMisfortune
Summary: A drabble about Percival and the scars he bears.





	Monster in the Mirror

The nightmares would haunt him well into his adulthood, gouging deep scars into his psyche that paralleled the set on his face. Cruel and taunting whenever he hunched over the bathroom basin, pale and shaky in the shadowed reflection of the cracked and broken mirror as blood dripped from his torn knuckles and broken fragments, splattering quietly onto the floor tiles.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

He had been to Pelican Town as a child, once and only once. The Fair had drawn his mother to the scene, all dressed up with hair pinned back into its neat bun and the latest stylish necklace around her neck. Wealth permeated from her, tagging her gliding gait as she gazed at the stalls of fresh produce and craftsmanship with a slight up tilt of her nose.

Percival had been a mere seven years old at the time, but he felt he was old enough to know how to take care of himself. How to be mature and act appropriately according to his familiar status.

But living in a household with two older siblings who cast a long shadow over the youngest sibling left him very much alone. He wasn’t pretty and elegant like his sister, wasn’t the social butterfly and all-around likeable guy that was his brother. He couldn’t entice people in with his looks or his personality, make cordial connections simply by being who he was. He had been a boy with boney limbs that didn’t quite seem to fit his height and cold, silver eyes that made people shiver whenever he stared at them for too long. He locked away his emotions from his face if he felt them at all, staring blandly and watching from afar- a silent observer overlooking a sea. _Disconnected_.

He had been a smart child, though- strategy and wordplay coming easy to him. Puzzles were quickly and methodically solved, and long, complicated maths and sentences didn’t faze him in the least when the tutors laid them out before him. It used to make his mother so proud.

Yet when he was standing in the shadow of his mother, quiet as the wooden statues she was criticizing with a narrowed eye, his own gaze trailed after a group of other children about his age and slightly older, smiling and laughing before their eyes settled on him.

One jerked their head, a silent gesture of him to join them, a welcoming yet curious smile on their lips, mischief glinting in their eyes. He became hopeful for just the briefest of  moments, that perhaps someone of his own would be willing to be his friend, and not because his family came from old money and high society, but because they genuinely liked him, and all he had to do was risk reaching out of his shell just this once.

Percival should’ve known it would end badly.

One of the boys had been a local- Percival couldn’t remember his name or his face, but he could remember pale green eyes, like unpolished jade. He had led the group, sneaking off from their parents and other adults, sand out of the town proper. Some lagged behind before falling away altogether when it came to light of their plan, fearful and worried. There was an old mine not too far out of town, rumors of ghosts and other monsters that fell from the jade-eyed boy’s lips scarring some of the younger children away. The walk took care of more, some growing too tired or disenchanted to continue on, others falling to distractions along the way.

Percival had followed them all the way to the dark maw of the cave entrance, the inside only lit by the sunlight peeking through. By then there were only six children outside himself, and he one of the youngest of them all. He didn’t know why he kept following them, knowing full well he shouldn’t be out this far, adventuring into dark, dangerous places. But the other children around him laughed and joked, sometimes bumping shoulders with him with a glitter in their eyes as if this was all good fun. Just a little scare, like a haunted house on Spirits’ Eve the local boy claimed. _You weren’t a **baby** , were you, Percival? _

The phrase struck him, like the one time his brother called him such when he had started to tear up over a scraped knee when he had been four, or when his sister would scoff at his presence and tell him he knew _nothing_ whenever he tried to open his mouth to explain something he had learned.

It was this reason that he followed the others into the hollowed out earth.

There was an elevator in the back, the grimy light above the door flickering slightly, the dust keeping its glow from chasing away the shadows.

One of the girls found the old buttons by accidentally bumping into it, the light startling her as the doors creaked open loud and slow, the gears having years of disuse and neglect collected in its gaps. It made Percival hesitate over the safety of the device, but a boy just a few months older than he hooked him by the elbow and dragged him along. _Time to get your prissy clothes dirty-!_

There were so many _levels_ \- the labels long since rubbed off an entire buttons missing from the panel. It didn’t stop them from pressing one of the lowest level buttons, some startled yelps turning into giggling as the elevator jerked oddly and slowly rumbled downward.

_Down and down, to the depths of the underworld._

It seemed like years before the floor beneath them jolted to a halt, the doors slowly sliding open. It was pitch black where the old light in the elevator didn’t scare it away just a few feet into the tunnel. There was no dripping of water like he expected in a cave, no sound outside of their soft puffs of air as pensive silence fell upon them.

Fire snapped to life behind the group, startling many as the jade-eyed boy lifted a lighter above his head and stepped into the cave. Fearless. Undaunted.

The other children slowly followed after their leader, like ducklings to their mother, staying close to the light. Many were squinting into the darkness, hoping, _fearing_ to see one of the fabled beasts and monsters that lurked in the darkness of the mines.

Percival’s foot caught a rock and he tripped at the same time screams filled the darkness. Fear shot through his veins as pure ice as something echoed after them in the darkness, deep and eerie and _otherworldly._ He scrambled to pick himself up, scraping up his hands and knees as he went. He was bowled over twice by panicked feet as the other children pushed at each other to reach the elevator first, the lighter clattering to the stone floor and snuffing itself out as Darkness surrounded them all- all except the light from the elevator door, growing dimmer as it slowly closed, the eerie sound turning into multiple, a symphony of unnatural howls and snarls.

Or tried to close, as the fastest of them all, a flighty little thing of a girl, shoved her way between the closing panels and pushed them back open.

The children poured into the doors, slapping at any and all buttons in hopes to get the doors to shut faster, to take them _away_ -

Percival felt a wordless scream of his own force its way from his throat, hands reaching out towards the closing elevator doors. But children, frightened, care little for others and more about themselves, especially when dark, shadowy figures danced in the fading light, claws and teeth and bright, bright eyes.

Darkness surrounded him as the light disappeared behind the elevator door, snuffing out _hope_ as his hands slammed into the old metal, pounding, _begging_ to be let back in until the fear became a crescendo in his chest, his head whipping around at a gurgling hiss from directly behind him, staring straight into pupiless white eyes-

He didn’t remember anything after that, not until he woke up in the hospital at ZuZu City days later, his face stiff and hands and arms bandaged, but alone. So very alone.

 A strange man with just a hint of grey in his beard and an eyepatch explained to him what his mother could not even bother to show up to tell him- that he had been down in the mines for hours after the other children made it back to the surface, their cries of themselves and the confusion and panic of their parents barring the truth from their sights, that there was still one more child left behind.

He had been dragged far off from the elevator, slashed at and thrown about by a so-called monster the slight grizzled man referred to as a Shadow Brute. It was a miracle he came out as he was than in worse condition- or dead, the man had explained in his odd gruff words.

Percival didn’t quite believe the man, didn’t quite believe his memory that led up to him waking up in the hospital, covered in bruises and scratches. Nothing seemed to feel concrete to him, firm and assured, although he knew he had been left behind, abandoned in the dark by people who cared for naught but themselves.

_Things would be back to normal in no time, Percival._

**_Lies._ **

His mother would no longer look at him. In his direction, yes, but never at him. Even after being discharged and they went home, she began to put distance between herself and her youngest child. The scars were still pink at the edges and the nightmares of underworldly screams and pain haunted his sleep when he began to forget when was the last time she willingly touched him, hugged him or kissed his cheek.

His sister called him hideous, a sneer wrinkling her pretty face. _Pretty, unlike his own_.

His brother would avoid him. Flinched and tried to shoo him away whenever he failed. _Cursed and beguiled._

By the time he finally reached eight years old, Percival no longer left the confines of his home, not to social gatherings, not to visit family with his mother and siblings. Left behind. _Ashamed._

Throwing himself into his studies no longer brought him recognition, no amount of grades he skipped made his mother smile at him or even look his way.

The trio of scars that ran diagonally from left eyebrow to right jawline slashed any hopes. Any thought of companionship. _They were never needed._

The only monsters, Percival knew, were humans and the one that looked back at him in the mirror with dark circles under his eyes and fingers digging into the sides of the basin. Humans, he had learned from that day, cared nothing for other people other than themselves unless someone could elevate them further towards their goals. Their faces were masks with smiles and pleasant words on their lips, but in the end, everyone would simply leave you behind if you were no longer useful. _Discarded like the unwanted burden you are. They are glad to be rid of you._

He was a cold, calculating man now, with eyes as pale and sharp as ice and words blunt and to the point. His business was carried out with swift shrewdness, his twenty-one hour shifts of work soaked in the blood and tears he shed during the scant three hours he gave himself as he worked tirelessly on the old orchard he purchased out of pocket after spending years working for Joja, training others how to see and handle the monsters that walked amongst them, to manage the lowly workers who would take any opportunity to get away with their ingrained sloth and monetary greed.

The proximity to Pelican Town escalated the terrors that slipped through the cracks and dug its claws into his subconscious, but he refused to fall under the so-called charms of countryside bumpkins and their traditionalism, their communal unity a thick mask of smiles and kindness, hiding away their true faces from strangers and family alike.

_They were the worst monsters of them all._

He may be a monster in the eyes of others, but no one would be able to out-monster him. Never again.

_It is safer that way._

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to bother me on [tumblr!](http://regalmisfortune.tumblr.com/)  
> For just Stardew Valley stuff by me, feel free to follow me [here](https://gardensofklo.tumblr.com/) instead!


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